Bury Me in a Free Land


BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER


Make me a grave where'er you will,

In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;

Make it among earth's humblest graves,

But not in a land where men are slaves.


I could not rest if around my grave

I heard the steps of a trembling slave;

His shadow above my silent tomb

Would make it a place of fearful gloom.


I could not rest if I heard the tread

Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,

And the mother's shriek of wild despair

Rise like a curse on the trembling air.


I could not sleep if I saw the lash

Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,

And I saw her babes torn from her breast,

Like trembling doves from their parent nest.


I'd shudder and start if I heard the bay

Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,

And I heard the captive plead in vain

As they bound afresh his galling chain.


If I saw young girls from their mother's arms

Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,

My eye would flash with a mournful flame,

My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.


I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might

Can rob no man of his dearest right;

My rest shall be calm in any grave

Where none can call his brother a slave.


I ask no monument, proud and high,

To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;

All that my yearning spirit craves,

Is bury me not in a land of slaves.





We Wear the Mask


BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR


We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.


Why should the world be overwise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

We wear the mask.


We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

We wear the mask!







A Double Standard

BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER

Do you blame me that I loved him?

   If when standing all alone

I cried for bread a careless world

   Pressed to my lips a stone.


Do you blame me that I loved him,

   That my heart beat glad and free,

When he told me in the sweetest tones

   He loved but only me?


Can you blame me that I did not see

   Beneath his burning kiss

The serpent’s wiles, nor even hear

   The deadly adder hiss?


Can you blame me that my heart grew cold

   That the tempted, tempter turned;

When he was feted and caressed

   And I was coldly spurned?


Would you blame him, when you draw from me

   Your dainty robes aside,

If he with gilded baits should claim

   Your fairest as his bride?


Would you blame the world if it should press

   On him a civic crown;

And see me struggling in the depth

   Then harshly press me down?


Crime has no sex and yet to-day

   I wear the brand of shame;

Whilst he amid the gay and proud

   Still bears an honored name.


Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think

   Your hate of vice a sham,

When you so coldly crushed me down

   And then excused the man?


Would you blame me if to-morrow

   The coroner should say,

A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn,

   Has thrown her life away?


Yes, blame me for my downward course,

   But oh! remember well,

Within your homes you press the hand

   That led me down to hell.


I’m glad God’s ways are not our ways,

   He does not see as man,

Within His love I know there’s room

   For those whom others ban.


I think before His great white throne,

   His throne of spotless light,

That whited sepulchres shall wear

   The hue of endless night.


That I who fell, and he who sinned,

   Shall reap as we have sown;

That each the burden of his loss

   Must bear and bear alone.


No golden weights can turn the scale

   Of justice in His sight;

And what is wrong in woman’s life

   In man’s cannot be right.